Philip Katcher lives and works in Pennsylvania USA, and has written over 20 titles in the Men-at-Arms Series including the highly successful five-volume set on Armies of the American Civil War.

Tony Bryan is a freelance illustrator of many years experience after initially qualifying in Engineering and working for a number of years in Military Research and Development. Tony has a keen interest in military hardware - armour, small arms, aircraft and ships - and has produced many illustrations for partworks, magazines and books, including a number of titles in the New Vanguard series.

Because of the length of the coastline of the United States, from the beginning American ordnance and engineers placed an emphasis on heavy artillery mounted in coastal defences. The Union army organised its 'Heavy Artillery' into separate regiments, uniformed and equipped differently. While the Field Artillery was assigned across the fighting fronts Heavy Artillery units served the big guns in the forts and the defences of Washington. The Confederates did not differentiate types of artillery and those that became known as Heavy Artillery did so through informal association rather than formal designation. This book details the development and usage of the big guns. New Vanguard 38 and 40 are also available in a single volume special edition as 'American Civil War Artillery 1861-65'.